How will relationships between major powers—the United States, China, Russia, Europe—emerge from the war? Should China fear the end of the conflict, or does it stand to benefit from a new balance of power? Can globalization and open trade survive? SWIFT may have shut Russia out, but the risk of food insecurity seems likely to oblige the world to remain relatively open. Do the silent threat of nuclear weapons and the sweeping use of information technology—in particular by the civilian population—announce a new set of rules for future conflicts? What is Europe’s role in all this? Will it emerge from its torpor, in a world that opposes brute force to the bloc’s commercial pacifism?

The war in Ukraine is upending numerous principles established in the last thirty years. Yet, paradoxically, much of the world views the conflict as taking place on the margins, far from their concerns. This is a world preoccupied with other challenges: the presidential election in Brazil; the upcoming Congress of the Chinese Communist Party; Lebanon’s impending collapse; the fight of African people to recover a cultural heritage denied them by colonization. This issue of Politique Étrangère examines all these questions.

This issue is available in French only.

WAR IN UKRAINE: A NEW WORLD ?

The War in Ukraine: Echoes of Korea?, by Pierre Grosser (In French only - Guerre d'Ukraine : un modèle coréen ?)

Global Food Insecurity and the War in Ukraine, by Sébastien Abis et Diane Mordacq

SWIFT: From Neutral Tool to Geopolitical Weapon?, by Alexis Collomb

Ukraine: A New Era for Nuclear Weapons, by Jean-Louis Lozier

Open-Source Intelligence in the War in Ukraine, by Sophie Perrot

The European Union in a Continent at War, by Thierry Chopin and Christian Lequesne

German Defense Policy: A Historic Turning Point?, by Hans Stark (In French only - La politique de défense de l'Allemagne : un tournant historique ?) 

War in Ukraine: An Embarrassment for Beijing, by Marc Julienne

Sovereignty in Putin’s Russia, by Bernard Chappedelaine

CURRENT AFFAIRS

Brazil on the Eve of the Presidential Elections, by Martine Droulers

The Twentieth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party: A Missed Opportunity for Renewal, by Jérôme Doyon

BAROMETERS

Japan’s Public Debt: Causes and Sustainability, by Quentin Simon

OPINION

Lebanon, Theater of Confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, by Nabil el Khoury

A New Phase in Movements for the Restitution of African Cultural Heritage, by Ysé Auque-Pallez

REVIEWS
Edited by Marc Hecker

Israel, a Fragile Democracy, by Samy Cohen
The Star and the Scepter. A Diplomatic History of Israel, by Emmanuel Navon
The Failure of a Utopia. A History of the Left in Israel, by Thomas Vescovi
This review essay is written by Amélie Férey